The death of liberalism?

Jo Grimond

The liberal enlightenment was a new departure in human history, owing a great deal to the Renaissance and so to Greece, but breaking new ground. It only started in the eighteenth century. There are signs that it is now dying. The essence of the enlighten

ent was the belief in the capacity and impartiality of human reason. Most important the belief in its capacity to find the ways by which knowledge could be extended, human life better organised and the human Condition improved. Morals, politics, the law, the scientific method, were regarded as subject to universal and impartial rules Which we could and should discover by reason. Once discovered and obeyed man Could look forward to indefinite improveinent.

It would no longer be necessary to conquer and exploit other countries. Adam Smith showed that by trade, the division of labour and the abolition of restrictions Countries could greatly improve their standard of living without war. Morals and politics were to be carried on by reasoned argument and toleration. The scientific method freed inquiry from arbitrary taboos and discovered unalterable truths by

attending to which man could improve his health, wealth and surroundings. Law was no longer the instrument of the executive. but an impartial code applied to all. In the value of their personalities human beings were equals. They were of importance as human beings and not merely because of their role in some organisation. They were to be treated as ends, not means, hence the eventual freeing of slaves.

These beliefs still have force. Most speeches still assume that they are valid. As Communists, while practising the most brutal tyrannies in human history, speak of freedom and democracy, so do democratic politicians speak of their respect for liberalism and the rule of law. And many of them believe and practise what they preach. They are puzzled about developments which seem illiberal but they comfort themselves that they are unimportant, special cases, temporary, or justified by more pressing needs. All these reactions may be detected in the excuse liberals make for acquiescing in the sort of bullying which went on at Grunwick's. Even those bureaucrats who are engaged in pressing their claims regardless of the common good and the damage done to the community are still somewhat inhibited by liberal restraints; they demand say 10 per cent extra, not 100 per cent and claim virtue by so doing. But so far those who have challenged the general interest, e.g. by strikes, have come off best.

But liberal attitudes are being eroded. Disrespect for the law has been widely commented on. But this is only an example of a general trend. Soon the study of economics will go the way of the study of philosophy. Who now thinks Wittgenstein's notebooks of any general importance? The running of the economy will not be a matter of applying reason to observed data, but of power. Already the economic controversies of forty years ago sound mediaeval. Whether the scientific method itself will be called in question, I do not know. Attempts to twist scientific inquiry to suit the ruling theology do not seem to have had much success in Russia. But as state patronage more and more dominates research and development, an impartial approach to science must be in danger.

I took part in a television programme recently in which at least one protagonist suggested that those in charge of television programmes and interviews should be unashamedly partisan. There may indeed be a case for this if it means expressing impartially the views to which democratic majorities subscribe (though that would have its dangers) but it was apparent that what in fact was intended was that leftish commentators should condemn South Africa, even though little criticism was made of Mozambique, Cuba or Russia. And these commentators need have no qual ifications; they need not be elected to their jobs, nor indeed have reached them

through impartial competition. Statesubsidised monopolies deny people the right to work because they will not join a union. So it goes on. And the current development is twisting the arms of coin.panies which will not do what the government wants. In a liberal society this is indefensible. But is it the only way open to us? Are we ceasing to be a liberal country?

In many ways we are much nearer the Middle Ages or Tudor times than we are to the age of enlightenment. Would we have expected the monarchs of those days to subsidise the very barons who were denying their authority and undermining their rule? Would we have expected James VI of Scotland to have supplied the Earls, in their attempts to get him into their power, with the means to do so? Liberals would hardly have gone as far as that.

But, it is argued, if the government are going to bully they should bully impartially. This is a nice liberal compromise. But again inappropriate. Monarchs if they were wise did not attack the stronger barons with weaker forces. That is what led to the defeat of Mr Heath. The present policies, however, will be extended. Why should students who disrupt the universities get grants from the state whose policy is to maintain these institutions? Indeed, if students continue to think of themselves as an interest group what else can they expect? Why should the families of trade unions, which strike in defiance of government policies, get national assistance? Of course, for the first of these new extensions of power politics, a smaller university and an unimportant trade union will be singled out as victims.

For modern liberals these developments present a terrible dilemma. They are illiberal. But what is government to do in an illiberal age? Sit with its hand tied while disruptive interests break up the country — using weapons supplied by the government? In many ways Mr Callaghan is to be applauded by liberals for attempting an effective defence of the common good. But as another step towards arbitrary government and the end of the rule of law, these incidents must to liberals be deeply alarming. The dilemma has its parallel in international affairs. We see the return of aggressive imperialism all over the world.

Communist countries have ruined their own economies return to the quest for wealth and power through war. Only resistance, not sweet reason, will deter them. Do we believe that the future of Somaliland or Rhodesia will be settled by liberal prin ciples? Do we believe indeed that our policies in Africa will end in anything but the handing over of African countries to dictatorships? The only hope for Africa is now not in the liberal countries of Western Europe but in Africa itself. Liberals — with a small 'I' — must ask themselves how they should respond to the growth of illiberalism. I know it has been growing for some time and has not yet taken over, but the time for decision is closing in. Up to now and perhaps for five years ahead it is possible to contend that liberalism still permeates the rulers of our country. The 'social democrats' were liberal, though they are now little more than the flat tyre of the Labour movement. Some civil servants are deeply liberal, though recent revelations show how weak was the liberalism of leading politicians and mandarins after the war. But optimism is becoming less and less easy to sustain. The government and much of the public service have become interests like any other.

It is proposed that the Navy and Army and Air Force should form themselves into trade unions, i.e. self-interest groups — like the condottieri of old. The notion that the government and the public service, national or local, are different from warring factions and stand outside them is not comprehended. I know too that politics is always about competing interests. I know that liberal values have always been threatened. But that does not mean that attacks upon them are not serious. In previous times too there has been understanding of what liberal principles entail. I am coming to doubt whether that will survive unless more 'determined steps are taken to preserve it. On the one hand there may be some truth in the view that people don't want freedom and responsibility. On the other the bureaucratic attitude has bitten very deep — as anyone who listens to ministers must know — and common sense, let alone the golden rule, is laughed at in the corridors of power.

The Middle Ages and the Renaissance differed from us in three important ways. There was a pervading belief in religion. Secondly, the government attracted some loyalty. Now the effective part of government attracts very little. It is thus weakened as an instrument for expressing the general will or sustaining impartial instruments such as the law. But, thirdly, it can become an instrument of tyranny on a scale impossible in past ages. It has indeed become so in Russia and other Communist countries. The corporate state can be seized by one corporation and used to clamp down an iron repression by modern technology. What then can liberals do? First, realise the nature of the danger. We are not in a temporary aberration from some liberal norm. Such incidents as the Government's 'black list' are not passing eccentricities.

They are the inevitable result of a process which can produce no other result. It is no good hoping they will go away of their own volition when the terms of trade change or whatever. There are signs that liberals are fighting back. But there are few signs that they understand what faces them. The Conservative party, for instance, and I take them as an organisation fundamentally liberal, has itself been responsible for the

growth of bureaucratic corporatism, and good conservatives still serve bureaucratic interests which pose the dilemma. And the dilemma is this: do liberals now form an interest group of their own? Do they accept that the liberal world is disappearing? Do they fight with the weapons of their opp0.nents? Or do they try to reassert the basic beliefs of a liberal society? If they follow the latter course they should be telling the public that the 'black list' is not the error of mistaken ministers. It is the inevitable corollary of the system. If the government controls our lives and supplies the means by which we live, it will doctor those means to suit its ends. When the state is the same sort of interest group, only with far greater power, as the other baronial empires, it will behave like a feudal baron. It is absurd to suppose that it will indefinitely provide the sinews of revolt. The double standard which expects the state to dole out the taxpayers' money from arbitrary political motives to British LeYland and a host of other interests but also expects it to act as an impartial liberal guardian of general values cannot survive. BY any enlightened standards it is monstrous for it to build Concorde or subsidise shipbuilding at the present rate but yet denY funds to kidney machines.

Once our situation is appreciated liberals have two alternatives — but they are alternatives. They can unite and mount a huge exercise to awaken the public to the direction in which they are drifting. They can attempt to educate people in the impossibility of running a free society if everyone joins some interest group and employs a bureaucracy to press their claims to more of everything — by force, if necessary. They can warn against the inevitable consequences of too much state intervention, too many boards, too much power in the hands of the state. They can unite to resist a further advance down the road of corporatism. Or they can accept that we no longer live in a liberal age. They may decide that for the time being we have gone so far in an illiberal direction that they must themselves take illiberal measures to defend the general interest and maintain a base from which freedom can once more be extended. If so, they must form an effective interest grouP• But they must also encourage the political skills, appropriate to a situation more akin to the Middle Ages than the nineteenth century — governments must fight back by manipulating the rewards and punishments they can inflict. It is an unpleasant prospect but the condition of mankind has throughout its history been far more like the worst conditions described by Hobbes than the ideal of Locke, Hume and Adam Smith.

I would of course choose the first alternative. I believe there is still time to occupY the middle ground of politics and assert the general interest — but only if we understand the nature of our present situation, mount a massive exercise to educate people in the choice before them and attack on a broad front.